[UPDATED] Apple Is Now Being Sued By Users Over "Touch Disease"

Update, August 30, 2016: Users affected by "Touch Disease" are suing Apple in a nationwide class-action lawsuit, according to Reuters. The case accuses Apple of fraud and violating California consumer protection laws and states that Apple has long been aware of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus defects causing "Touch Disease." Apple has not issued a comment.

Original, August 25, 2016: Several iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users around the globe have been experiencing the same frustrating glitch: a flickering grey bar appears at the top of the screen, then the screen mysteriously stops working altogether. According to Forbes, more and more people are showing up at third-party repair shops with this issue because Apple's Genius Bar won't fix the problem.

Courtesy of iFixit

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The question floating around the Internet is whether this is a real bug or "planned obsolescence" by Apple to get people to purchase a newer smartphone. (The iPhone 7's announcement should be sometime the first week of September, with a late September release.) Some repair specialists have described the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus as "ticking time bombs," and speculate that soon everyone with those models will experience it and have to upgrade.

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This issue, dubbed "touch disease," can't be solved just by troubleshooting or restarting your phone, because it stems from the type of hardware used to make it. More recent models, like the iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus, are built differently, so there haven't been any reports of these issues yet.

Remember the people who first reported that the new phones were bending? These problems could all be related, according to Mashable. If you have an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, be on the lookout for the grey bar of death and you might want to start researching your next smartphone now.